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EastMontrose C i v i c A s s o c i a ti o n N e w s l e tt er Connect: Facebook.com/groups/East Montrose and www.eastmontrose.org or Mail: PO Box 131363 Houston, TX 77219 November 2018 It is the mission of East Montrose Civic Association to serve the interests of East Montrose, to promote the safety and welfare of its residents, to foster a sense of community, and to celebrate the diversity and uniqueness of the area. These goals are accomplished through the efforts of its volunteers and elected officers. Mark your Calendars for Tuesday December 4, 2018 for the Annual East Montrose Holiday Party and White Elephant Gift Exchange! Come and Join your Neighbors from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. at the home of Mary Quinn, EMCA VP, 305 Fargo. The EMCA Board will provide some holiday munchies along with water and soft drinks. We ask everyone to bring their own adult libations and an appetizer/snack/ or food item to share with the group. The party is free for members. We are asking each nonmember to contribute $5.00 towards the cost of the party. If you are not currently a member but would like to join, you can join EMCA by contacting our Treasurer Julia Schafer at [email protected] or at the door. Please remember that each person who wishes to participate in the fun and often hilarious White Elephant gift exchange should bring a wrapped (or at least disguised) gift….the value of which we leave to your good judgment, but note that most of the gifts are under a $25 value. Everyone is welcome! See you there! We will also be electing a President, Vice President and At Large #1 Board member at the party. The nominating committee has made a recommendation for the following slate. The nominating committee recommendations are as follows: President: Mary Quinn Vice President: Karen Brohn At Large # 2: Malisa Galvan A short bio for each candidate is included in this month’s newsletter (p. 4). All members in good standing (meaning your dues are up to date- you can check by emailing our treasurer Julia Schafer [email protected]) are eligible to vote. You can also vote at the party or you can complete the absentee/proxy ballot that is included in the this newsletter (p.3) and return the proxy to our treasurer Julia Schafer at [email protected] . East Montrose Civic Association Newsletter Page 1 East Montrose—A Century of Memories... by Nell Stewart In December it will be 99 years since the Stewart family, newcomers to Houston, moved into a house on the corner where two dirt streets intersected. After a short while, one of those streets, Welch, was paved. The other one is still an asphalt topped street a few blocks long. So this story is entitled “Things and People That Used to Come Down Welch and Don’t Anymore”. The neighborhood was occupied mostly by couples with children, and enterprising persons saw an opportunity to make some money. They realized that parents would probably like to have photographs of their children. So one man came around with a cart pulled by a goat, and yes, my parents had a picture of my brother sitting in the cart. Then later there was a man who came around with a pony, and yes, there was a picture of me, much too big for the poor pony, sitting on his back anyway. Another enterprising man had a music box, operated by a hand crank, mounted on a pole. He would stop at what he considered to be a promising loca- tion, put the pole on the ground, and start to play. He had a monkey dressed in a little uniform, and when a crowd began to gath- er the monkey would take off his cap and pass it around to collect whatever pittance the listeners could contribute. It must have meant a long day for the man and the monkey to collect a few dollars. There was a man pedaling a bicycle to which he had attached a cart holding his equipment. He would blow a whistle, and everyone knew when they heard that sound that the knife and scissors sharpener was in the neighborhood. Housewives rushed to get their dull equipment sharpened. Every Saturday night, without fail, a man came along Welch calling out frequently in a sing-song voice, “Sunday morning Chronicle and Post paper” I don’t know how far he went but I suppose it was as far as his supply lasted. A man came around only when something of major importance had happened. There was no “Breaking News” on TV since there was no TV. Evidently radio had not progressed to the point that the station (KPRC only for a long time) that someone would get the news and interrupt the program in progress. So the man could be heard from quite a distance calling out “extra, extra, read all about it” and then giving a hint to the subject by mum- bling a few words which you couldn’t quite understand but which you knew you needed to know. You would then rush to pur- chase a copy. Until around 1927 there was no public transportation that came down Welch Street. One had to walk to Fairview to catch the Mandell streetcar. It was given that name because it turned around at Mandell Street and returned to go downtown. Somebody decided it would be a good idea to have a bus route which started downtown and worked its way to Welch Street. It was an ex- press bus which meant that the fare was a dime instead of a nickel like most of the other buses. Along about Taft Street, it stopped picking up and letting out passengers but went straight to its stopping place on Travis Street. It was a small bus because of the jog in the street by Anderson Fair which would have made it difficult to maneuver a larger bus easily. The streetcar no longer ran down Fairview and during WW II, the tracks were torn up to make raw material which would be turned into planes and ships. The Welch bus was phased out after the war and again there was a walk to Fairview this time for a bus instead of a street car. The ice truck came on certain days of the week. All customers had cardboard signs with different numbers which would be placed in a window so it would be visible to the “iceman”. These signs indicated the number of pounds of ice you wanted. The iceman would get out and go to the bed of his truck where he had his day’s supply covered by a canvas tarp. He chipped off the desired amount of ice. Somehow he would know what size of a block of ice equaled how many pounds. He would put the block into a leather pouch, hoisted it onto his back and took it inside and placed into the top of your icebox. My brother and I knew what day the truck would be coming by our house and in good weather we would be sitting on the sidewalk awaiting its arrival. Why? Be- cause the iceman would chip off a small piece of ice for each of us - with his bare hands which had touched how many back doors and ice box handles and not have been washed. We never suffered any ill effects. The milkman was somebody else who also had a regular route. You left clean glass bottles from the milkman’s prior visit. The number of bottles you left on the back step indicated the number of new bottles of milk you wanted. One dairy had bottles with a top section which was separated by its shape to mark the portion of the cream that had risen to the top that could then be poured off or mixed back into the milk. The sound of a bell would announce the arrival of the Heights Bakery truck. It was a large yellow vehicle with a door on the side which provided entry to a space with shelves stacked with all manner of baked goods. There were vegetable peddlers who originally came around with carts and then later with pickup trucks. Lastly, there were book salesmen with sets of books such as encyclopedias and good literature. They would accept payments in either weekly or monthly small sums. My mother couldn’t pass up the “Journeys Through Bookland” set. It consisted of eleven volumes, each one with a little more advanced stories to read. I still have those books on my bookshelf serving as a reminder of the way things used to be in what we now call East Montrose. East Montrose Civic Association Newsletter Page 2 Out and About… by Julie Young Take a book, share a book. There are 75,000 registered Little Free Library book exchanges in 88 coun- tries worldwide! Tens of millions of books are exchanged each year through these Little Libraries. Keep your eyes open for one right here in East Montrose – in the north end. We’re betting the design will be “artsy.” Start stockpiling books to donate, and get a new battery for that reading lamp over your bed. ;) It’s Pecan Season! Years ago, I used to know which blocks to walk down to find large trees dropping their bounty onto the ground. Many of those trees have been lost to development, but there are still plenty of fallen nuts free for the gathering if you know where to look.

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